The numbers will please the $45 billion start-up after it faced a tough year in 2016. It has seen growth slow in its domestic market and is gearing up to losing Hugo Barra, the executive they poached from Google in 2013, who heads up Xiaomi's international expansion.

Xiaomi's Redmi Note 4 launched last week in India and has a 5.5-inch screen, metal body and a 13-megapixel camera. It's the follow on from the Redmi Note 3 which sold 3.6 million units in India last year, according to Barra. The figure of 250,000 unit sales of the Redmi Note 4 came during a flash sale on Xiaomi's own website and e-commerce platform Flipkart.

The Chinese upstart is desperate to find growth in new markets like India because having once been the number one vendor in China, Xiaomi has seen its market share eaten away by the likes of Huawei in the high-end, and Oppo and Vivo in the mid-to-low-segment. Xiaomi Chief Executive Lei Jun admitted recently that the company had grown "too fast".

In India however, Xiaomi has been growing strong and has around 9 percent market share, according to Counterpoint Research. India is Xiaomi's biggest market outside of China and last year generated $1 billion in annual revenue.